Currently engrossed in preconstruction, the team building SAIF Corp.’s new headquarters in Salem is employing a modified form of IPD. Owner’s rep DAY CPM, Ankrom Moisan Architects, engineer Glumac and contractor Lease Crutcher Lewis are meeting twice a week in converted surge space in the latter firm’s Portland office. Team members will relocate to a construction office near the site in Salem as the heavy work approaches.

“We’ve found for us, two, three days a week has been real effective,” said Andy Dykeman, senior project manager for Lewis Crutcher Lewis.

SAIF is attaching a five-story wing to an existing five-story building, with a goal of making it all look like one building. Move-in for SAIF is expected in summer 2018.

Dykeman said IPD has improved communication by replacing the traditional way parties communicate on big jobs – through a never-ending cycle of highly-formal requests for information.It’s been a new experience for Ankrom Moisan and Lease Crutcher Lewis to have the contractor and trade partners involved in design, Dykeman said. But here it led to an enriching dialogue as the architects established the building’s programmatic layout: Four stories with wider floorplates, or five stories with narrower floors? Structural steel or concrete?

“This prevents all that volleying where the architect has to write something up and toss it over the net, and then we have to analyze it and toss it back over the net,” he said. “It really puts everyone on the same side of the net.”